The woods are abundant with wildflowers.  Perhaps due to the 80 weather we had in March, there is a luxuriant display of understory.  Without the forest canopy yet in place, the nooks and crannies have been drying out. Green blades and colorful blooms are boldly standing at attention. The cracked soil and dried leaves that have been pressed down by winter snow give way to spring eruptions.  

New life can't be contained -- at least not in nature.  It WILL find its way to its fullest expression. 

How about our new life in Christ?  

Now that we are on the other side of Easter Sunday 2012, how can we stretch and boldly blossom with something new and previously unavailable?  I don't know about you, but I don't want to live as though Lent, Holy Week and Easter 2012 were just a nice spiritual exercise.  I am ready to be different -- so please don't be surprised if I move through time, space and relationships as a new creation.  I may even take it as a compliment if I hear you say:  I never expected that from you, Pamela!  

How about you?  Where are the blades and blooms erupting in YOU? 

 Excerpt from Pastor Randy O'Donnell's Easter Sermon  

"The tomb is still empty today.  Despite all the barriers we construct, despite all stones that we roll in the way, despite all the wars that we rage, despite our personal shortcomings and barriers, despite how we mess up things, whether it be in our relationships with our family members, with our coworkers, with our neighbors, and with those whom we disagree or are even repulsed by, despite how we break things down, despite how we interfere, how we insult, how we destroy the tomb is still empty.  The sometimes hard reality to accept in our lives is that no matter what we do and what we don’t do, what we think and forget to think, the tomb is still empty.  We may bring baggage to God, we may offend God, we may even curse at God, but the tomb is still empty.  We may push things in the way of God, we may create new hoops to jump through, we may complicate things so much in our lives that we expect that God would really want to let us have it, and the tomb is still empty....

What happens when we try to contain God? When we think the tomb still contains death.  Whether it is things that we have done or left undone.  Whether it is the brokenness that I have caused others or they have caused me.  Anytime we begin to think that God cannot forgive us anymore, anytime that we think God cannot love us anymore, anytime that we think God has somehow given up on us; anytime we begin to think those types of things, in a very real way, we are trying to roll stones back in front of the tomb.  We are trying to fill up what God has forever emptied....

 What are we holding on to as we encounter the news of the empty tomb?  What in our lives are we trying to put in the way of God?  May we be bold enough to take our faith to the next level.  May we challenge ourselves to let go and let God.  May we open ourselves up to trust more fully in what God has done in the cross event of Jesus.  The tomb is still empty.  Christ is risen.  He is risen indeed.  Amen."